Month: April 2017

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Verizon has struck a deal with Corning to purchase up to 37.2 million miles of optical fiber and related hardware over the next three years, with Verizon planning to use that fiber to boost capacity and lower latency in its wireless network.

"The agreement calls for Corning to provide and Verizon to purchase up to 20 million kilometers (12.4 million miles) of optical fiber each year from 2018 through 2020, with a minimum purchase commitment of $1.05 billion," Verizon said in its announcement of the purchase agreement today.

The fiber will be used for network improvements "designed to improve Verizon’s 4G LTE coverage, speed the deployment of 5G, and deliver high-speed broadband to homes and businesses of all sizes." But while Verizon mentioned both mobile and home Internet service, this doesn't mean there will be any unexpected expansions of FiOS, Verizon's fiber-to-the-home service.

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Joel Abel Garcia, a 35-year-old from the Bronx, New York, became the third member of an alleged ring of automated teller machine "skimmers" to plead guilty today in the US District of New Jersey to the charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Another member of the group—Victor Hanganu, a Romanian citizen living in Bayside, New York—pleaded guilty to the same charge on April 10. Eleven others have been charged in the conspiracy, which targeted PNC and Bank of America ATMs in New Jersey from March 2015 until June of 2016. Another Romanian, Radu Marin, pleaded guilty on March 29.

"According to admissions made in connection with the pleas, Garcia, Hanganu, and others sought to defraud financial institutions and their customers by illegally obtaining customer account information, including account numbers and personal identification numbers," a Department of Justice spokesperson said in a statement made on behalf of federal prosecutors in New Jersey. Garcia was found to be personally responsible for $132,805 in withdrawals using forged ATM cards out of a total of $428,581 over the 15-month period.

Garcia admitted as part of the plea that "he installed 'skimming' devices on the ATMs" belonging to PNC and Bank of America at multiple locations in New Jersey, "including pinhole cameras that recorded password entries and card-reading devices capable of recording customer information encoded on magnetic strips," according to the statement.

Floyd Lee Buchanan (left), and Troy Montgomery Cornish. The pair was arrested Friday in Maryland while allegedly camcording Fate of the Furious. (credit: Anne Arundel County Police Department)

A June 15 trial date has been set for two Maryland men arrested on suspicion of camcording the new action flick Fate of the Furious, a court clerk said Tuesday. The men, Troy Montgomery Cornish, 38, and Floyd Lee Buchanan, 35, were arrested Friday at a Hoyts Movie Theater after an investigator from the Motion Picture Association of America alerted the authorities to the alleged piracy.

The two were charged under a state law making it illegal to record a movie in a theater. The maximum penalty is a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Many states and the federal government have laws barring the use of recording devices in theaters.

Anne Arundel County Police reported (PDF) that the MPAA "investigator stated that he had been watching two known piracy suspects and observed them enter the movie theater. He also observed them watching and illegally recording an early release feature of Fate of the Furious."

Mac and iOS users with old hardware can now get some of Apple's fundamental software for free. According to a report from MacRumors, the iWork and iLife suite of apps, including iMovie, Numbers, Keynote, Pages, and GarageBand for Mac and iOS, are now listed as free in the App Store.

Previously, users with old hardware had to pay for each app. Individual programs cost between $5 and $20 each, which would add up if a user with an old Mac or iOS device wanted to download and use both suites. In 2013, Apple made iWork and iLife apps free for new Mac and iOS customers, but that meant you had to purchase a new Apple device before you could download any of those apps at no cost. Until now, users with hardware released before 2013 still had to pay for iWork and iLife if they hadn't made a new Apple purchase recently.

Now there's no more confusion surrounding the availability of Apple's basic apps. Anyone with old Apple devices can download the latest versions of iWork and iLife apps for free with no strings attached. It might be too little, too late for some; Apple's App Store is so vast that users with old hardware probably found iWork- and iLife-equivalents to use. While we don't know if future updates of iWork and iLife apps will be compatible with all old devices, it's worthwhile to download the latest versions now.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg kicked off his company's annual "F8" conference on Tuesday with a stark mission statement: People don't look at Facebook on their phones enough, and he has plans to change that.

The plan revolves around adding "augmented reality" (AR) features to Facebook's smartphone apps using our existing cameras. Starting today, basic features will be added to the Facebook app in a "closed beta" that makes more content appear when pointing a phone's camera at the real world.